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I have been watching this situation pretty carefully. The killer, James Holmes, does not have much of an online presence so it is difficult to learn much about him. A few details have surfaced however and they make his religious affiliation uncertain.

His parents are Christian and he at one point went to church fairly regularly. He also planned to be a counselor at a Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters group. This tells us that if he was a religious believer, he wasn’t a fundamentalist.

Holmes was also a very educated science student in neuroscience no less. This leaves me with the feeling that he might not have believed in a god at all. It is very possible that he is an atheist.

Of course, if that is the case, it had nothing to do with his actions. As near as I can tell, he started planning for the attack 4 months ago and really committed to it a month ago. It was at that time that he quit his PhD program. I suspect that something happened at those times to trigger this.

But I think atheists should be prepared to talk about this if it does come out that he was an atheist. Christians are already blaming the attack on atheism even though the reports currently suggest he was a Christian. Just imagine what they will say if it comes out that he didn’t really believe any of that stuff.